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Middlesex University - Centre for Ideas
Urban and Cultural Heritage Symposium
15th January 2015, Middlesex University
Abstracts
Dr Anastasia Christou
Social and Cultural Geographies of Mobilities in the City: Reflecting on Gender, Identity and Belonging in
Ethnographic Research
Abstract: This presentation takes the form of a ‘research overview’ of the research journeys and field
workings I have been engaged in over the past decade with a particular focus on the urban and cultural
heritage themes. The presentation is contextualised with methodological, theoretical and empirical
challenges, issues and debates over ethical positionality and interdisciplinarity. It briefly reports on the
dozen or so projects that I have been involved in over the last decade and highlights pertinent matters of
the research design and some of the core findings, mostly related to matters of gender, identity and
belonging/exclusion. The discussion aims at unveiling some of the compelling as well as challenging aspects
of conducting ethnographic and oral history research in both small and large-scale projects and in particular
those involving the collection of visual and narrative data in comparative perspective and through multisited and multi-method approaches in the United States, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, as well as
recent pilot research in Iceland. Finally, the presentation reflects on current challenges that researchers and
academics face but also makes suggestions as to how the Academy can support research trajectories and
contributions to knowledge production.
Dr Guiseppe Primiero
Cultural heritage assets preservation as a crucial element for construction of a European Identity through
digital exploitation
Abstract: The construction of the European Identity is a complex and nondeterministic process, an openended and continuous task, where all the fragments of society, history, politics from different nations come
together. Art is a crucial element to facilitate and accelerate this process. European citizens have the crucial
advantageous possibility of sharing freely cultural assets of different times and sorts, from cave paintings in
Spain, through Italian and Dutch paintings in the Renaissance, to postmodern and surrealist art all across
the Continent. The possibility of coming to know of the connections in space and time between different
assets that make part of the European artistic heritage is a unique opportunity to exploit, in order to make
European citizens more aware of the context in which they experience art, and how such experience relate
to that of other fellow citizens. Moreover, the very same infrastructure can help European scientist to share
data, processes and methodologies to preserve such assets. In this project we combine these two crucial
aspects of the European cultural identity by offering an infrastructure to share scientific elements and
personal experience around art.
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Middlesex University - Centre for Ideas
Dr Johan Siebers
Future in the Past: Heritage Theory Revisited
Abstract: In this paper I will explore the use contemporary thinking about cultural and urban heritage might
make of two ideas that were formulated initially by Ernst Bloch, in his book Heritage of Our Times (1935), in
which heritage is viewed from the perspective of the place of hope in human life: (1) future in the past: the
idea that past events and epochs have an unrealised dimension, something that was attempted but failed.
The significance of these events and epochs lies in the fact that, in a sense, they are not past at all. (2) noncontemporaneity: the idea that different temporalities co-exist within the same historical space. In both
cases "heritage" means, for Bloch, a process of actively and creatively connecting to a utopian, desirous and
imaginative core within past, or non-contemporaneous, cultural formations. This process occurs along two
axes: first, an active and transformative inheritance of past hopes that are also, still, our hopes and,
secondly, a confrontation with the otherness of the past that illuminates a centrally important but
inaccessible utopian core that is the same in all human desires. What might these ideas contribute to
contemporary discussions about heritage? How might they link heritage to practices of critique and
transformation today?
Professor Graeme Evans
Regeneration of the Venice Arsenale – Uses of the Past
Abstract: Venice represents one of the most archetypal sites of urban cultural heritage in the world, from
its formation in C5 and becoming a major maritime power from the C10. Its place in the imaginary of
travellers has been long established from the 1600s with the British idea of Venice as the "locus of decadent
Italianate allure" making it an epitome and cultural set piece of the Grand Tour, the traditional trip of
Europe undertaken by upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660
until the advent of large-scale rail transport in the 1840s after which time early tour operators such as
Thomas Cook created the first package tour for a wider audience. Narratives and images of Venice also
inhabited literature and art from the time of the first urban renaissance onwards. Venice also represents
one the first examples of rapid growth in urban tourism activity, with less than half a million tourists in 1947
growing to 1m in the 1970s and 2.5m today, a figure dwarfed by the day trippers and cruise tourists who
combine to make c.22m visitors a year. The average of 50-60,000 daily visitors (reaching 100,000 in the
Easter & Summer periods) matches the resident population, which conversely has been declining for several
years as this ‘open museum’ becomes unsustainable, too expensive and threatened by human and natural
environmental degradation.
The Venice Arsenal site represents an extraordinarily monumental portion of the historical built
environment of the city. Built in the C12 as a shipyard to cluster all the industrial activities then scattered
around the city, it was for at least four centuries the western world's greatest production site, the beating
heart of the Venetian maritime empire and one of the most impressive examples of intense industrial
activity of the Middle Ages. The history of the city of Venice was closely identified with that of the Arsenale
throughout its many centuries of supremacy and decline, which has been evident since WWI as the Navy
and other stakeholders have withdrawn from this site.
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Middlesex University - Centre for Ideas
The Municipality of Venice is committed to recovering and repositioning a larger part of the Arsenale
complex by developing a comprehensive urban regeneration programme for the whole area with the aim of
giving a different aspect of the city’s economy which is currently mainly based on tourism with ideas around
the knowledge economy, creative industries, smart cities and grids, i.e. a creative cluster. The reknown
Venice Biennales (Art and Architecture alternating) are also held in this site, again representing another
form of global culture and history on which this project will draw.
In the light of this scenario, this presentation with consider Venice in its past and present incarnations in the
context of the theme of ‘Uses of the Past’, the current JPI HERA Call, and EU Horizon 2020 Heritage Call.
What concepts, models and approaches might be adopted to investigate and inform this regeneration
process? How might this be situated in a comparative framework with other industrial/maritime heritage
re-use?
Susan Hensen
Street art and graffiti: Ephemeral urban heritage?
Abstract: Street art and graffiti are a now ubiquitous part of contemporary cities. However, viewers’
aesthetic encounters with graffiti and street art are complex and not well researched. Community based
approaches designed to assess people’s experience of their urban environments offer us some insights into
viewers' responses to unauthorized street art (e.g., Andron, 2014) and graffiti (e.g, Vitiello & Willcocks,
2011); whilst Gralinska-Toborek and Kazimierska-Jerzyk’s (2014) street based surveys of city dwellers
examine their responses to the murals commissioned by the city as part of an attempt to regenerate the
city through attracting art-tourism.
An affective divide appears to exist for the public, in that responses to graffiti appear more commonly
marked by revulsion and outrage at work “forced onto others” and which diminishes the value of a
community, whilst responses to street art are often positive and demonstrate community attachment and
appreciation, with some describing it as an unexpected pleasure yielding “delight upon discovery”
(Waclawek, 2011) or as work that “brightens up the city”. Indeed, street art’s very existence, as such, has
been argued to be dependent on its in situ nature, and ongoing dynamic relationship with the community it
exists within (Young, 2014).
The removal of street art from the street for private profit, and secondarily for conservation, has
consequences for its integrity and diminishes the cultural significance attached to its in-situ location. Merrill
(2014) notes that this practice has sparked debates reminiscent of the illegal trade of antiquities. A further
complication engendered in efforts to ‘protect’ street and graffiti is posed by its ephemeral nature, as an
ordinarily transient and short-lived art form. Attempts to protect such work, whether in situ, or via
wholesale removal from its original context, undermine the defining ephemeral and site-specific
authenticity of this ‘living’ form of urban heritage, which should arguably remain open to change and
erasure.
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Middlesex University - Centre for Ideas
Dr Neelam Raina
‘Cultural and Development: Relevance, value and notions of Identity’
Abstract: This paper explores the intricate links between Culture and Development. It discusses
development initiatives that are responsive to the cultural context and particularities of place and
community and advance a human-centered approach to development.
Cultural heritage, which encompasses the dynamism of cultural activities as well as their varied histories, is
a valuable component of development. The United Nations recognizes culture as a driver and enabler of
sustainable development. This paper shall provide a case study approach to exploring how culture can not
only enhance development but in the long run also be a powerful tool for reconstruction of post conflict
areas with community wide social, economic and environmental impact. Here the links between heritage
and creativity and their contribution to empowering communities, promoting sustainable growth and also
peace and reconciliation shall be discussed.
Dr Reza Gholami
Diasporic models of education and their impact on shifting notions of cultural heritage
Abstract: This paper, which is based on ongoing research, explores cultural and educational currents within
Iranian and Turkish ‘supplementary’ schools based in the UK. It argues that the pedagogies and curricula
employed/constructed by these schools suggests that their educational model can be more usefully
reconceptualised as ‘diasporic education’. In turn, this has potentially important implications for notions of
‘cultural heritage’. That is, the unique social position and increasing diversity of these schools is helping to
redefine ideas of heritage in ways which, again, might be better conceptualized as ‘diasporic’. Drawing on
diaspora theory, the paper aims to offer a preliminary theoretical sketch of what ‘diasporic education and
heritage’ might look like.
Nick Dines
What might a ‘critical’ ethnography of cultural heritage in urban settings look like?
Abstract: This presentation will reflect upon ethnographic approaches to the study of cultural heritage in
urban settings by drawing on my own research in the historic centre of Naples as well as a conference panel
that I recently organized entitled ‘Critical ethnographies of cultural heritage in Mediterranean cities’. In
particular, I aim to interrogate the implications of employing the term ‘critical’ in relation to researching
heritage, taking on board the fact that this very word is often used by social scientists indiscriminately so as
to lose any specific significance. The burgeoning field of ‘Critical Heritage Studies’ underscores the politically
and socially constructed nature of cultural heritage. For instance, the 2012 manifesto of the Association of
Critical Heritage Studies states:
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Middlesex University - Centre for Ideas
‘Heritage is, as much as anything, a political act and we need to ask serious questions about the power
relations that ‘heritage’ has all too often been invoked to sustain. Nationalism, imperialism, colonialism,
cultural elitism, western triumphalism, social exclusion based on class and ethnicity, and the fetishising of
expert knowledge have all exerted strong influences on how heritage is used, defined and managed.’ (See:
http://archanth.anu.edu.au/heritage-museum-studies/association-critical-heritage-studies)
Thinking in methodological terms, I want to suggest that a ‘critical’ ethnography not only needs to reflect
upon the position of the researcher but must also foreground questions of power and knowledge
production as well as the situated speech acts that render tangible and intangible dimensions of the past as
‘heritage’.
Key words: Critical heritage studies, ethnography, urban settings, power relations, and heritage discourse
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